People have long dreamed of automated slaves that would do their every bidding, someone to run errands and do chores. Finally, with advances in computing and communications, some of those dreams are turning into reality. Whereas robotic slaves are still in development, software assistants are becoming quite popular. These are better known as agents, often called intelligent software agents.

Software agents have been studied since the 1950s舒the early days of computer science. However, interest in agents began to climb with the expansion of personal computing and local area networks (LANs) in the 1980s, and then increased dramatically after the popularization of the Internet from 1995 onward.

Types of Agents

There are five main kinds of agents. The most well-known are personal assistants. These are often incorporated in desktop software products. Personal assistants try to understand what task a user is trying to perform and...